ANNOUNCEMENTS BELOW.

With this segment of Chapter Seventeen of Repairing the Legacy, we continue the serialization of Repairing the Legacy. This is a rough draft work in progress and may not reflect the final form. Time period: set after the ending of The Martiniere Legacy main trilogy. I’m breaking longer chapters into sections for readability. This is the third part of Chapter Seventeen. There will be five parts to this chapter.

New to the series? Chapter order:

Chapter One, Section One

Return of the Prodigal Son (2 parts)

Conversations and a Dinner (2 parts)

Dancing into Change (2 parts)

Sisterly Compromises (3 parts)

Conspiracies at the Rodeo (3 parts)

Passing the Baton (4 parts)

Research Complications (3 parts)

Chasing After Shadows (3 parts)

Fifth Anniversary Present (3 parts)

Mariah (5 parts)

Shadows, Redux (3 parts)

Accidents Happen (4 parts)

Maternal Memories (4 parts)

A Voice…Weeping for their Children (6 parts)

Winding Down the Years (4 parts)

The Gathering of Shadows (6 parts)

September, 2073

RUBY

One of the things Ruby hadn’t understood about that final drive that Gabe took was why he didn’t bring along any more electronics than the tracker and that ancient tablet.

She didn’t bring any electronics. For some reason, that had apparently been important to Gabe. The tracker—well, that was useful should something go wrong. And that tablet was old enough that it didn’t connect easily with their networks. Extracting Gabe’s recent entries on it was a significant challenge, even for Donald, and he knew a lot of Gabe’s old programming tricks. If Gabe’s perception of reality had been failing in his last month of life, the decline hadn’t carried over to his programming skills.

And that alone made Ruby wonder. Just what was Gabe chasing? He had been obsessed by that worm that kept fading in and out of their awareness. If he had a lead to its source, he would have encrypted it just this hard, to keep the worm out.

So why didn’t he give us the key?

No answers. Well, that was one reason why she was doing this ride—to find answers, as well as remember Gabe.

Legacy moved slowly for about half a mile, warming up. Ruby rubbed the palomino mare’s neck as they halted next to Bridge field.

“Getting up there in years, old gal.” She pursed her lips, thinking. Legacy was now eighteen years old—the foal she now carried might be her last. But Legacy had progressed from being the sparky young mare so like her great-granddam Sunshine in her willingness to break into bucking at the slightest trigger, to becoming one of Ruby’s most reliable ranch mounts.

Just like Sunshine had eventually done.

Memories. Sunshine had been a factor in Ruby and Gabe’s first meeting—at one of the rodeos where Sunshine decided to break out in a bucking spree before rounding the last barrel. Gabe followed her to the warmup pen after that mess of a run, in part because Troy Ridley was being an ass and harassing her, in part because he was attracted to a pretty redhead able to sit a tough bucking horse. Their conversation then, followed by another rodeo encounter the next weekend where he won the saddle bronc division on Skydancer. A few months later, when they were able to meet again—they had become lovers. After that, Gabe Ramirez had been a significant part of Ruby’s life, until their divorce. Even then, they had stayed connected until Brandon turned eighteen.

There had been something about the cowboy who called himself Gabe Ramirez that piqued Ruby’s interest and quick involvement with him. Intelligent. Mannerly. Knowledgeable about ag robotics—it was embarrassing now to realize the degree to which he had hid the depth of his knowledge about the subject from her in order to protect his real identity. She hadn’t a clue about Gabriel Martiniere—oh, she had heard bits and pieces about his testimony in US vs Martiniere Group. But the trial had been during a period when Granma was sick and struggling, and Ruby had been juggling rodeo titles, school, work, and family. If she had known more about the trial, she probably would have figured out who Gabe really was long before Philip forced their divorce.

Gabe Ramirez had not only been attractive, with those darkly handsome features and that big slow grin of his, but he was exquisitely polite. A grin twitched Ruby’s lips. Polite and formal, even down to their first time in bed. But not standoffish formal. Rather, the sort of formal that showed respect and admiration toward her as an equal. A rarity—then and now.

That was why his involvement with Mariah had stung so badly. And it hadn’t felt right, not like the Gabe she had known.

If only I had possessed a clue—maybe we could have avoided the horror of twenty years apart.

But she hadn’t.

Ruby exhaled and urged Legacy on.

Draw field. Letting Legacy rest before the steep climb to Homestead field. One of the places where Gabe and Mike used to like to race horses, Gabe on Star, then Mike on a succession of increasingly advanced horses as his skill grew.

That memory brought tears to Ruby’s eyes. Had it only been three years ago that Mike was excited about Spree and her potential? He had been right about Spree—the filly was now winning in futurity competition with her new owners, and they were generous in attributing her success to Mike as her breeder. And now Gabe was dead and Mike—who knew if he could ever ride again? If his hips remained undamaged by his osteoporosis, maybe.

Homestead field. She remembered Gabe’s first summer on the ranch as Gabriel Martiniere.

I’m fixing the pivot in that damn Homestead field for good, he had proclaimed. Now that I have the money to do it properly. We are not fighting that damn piece of junk anymore.

Homestead. The place of triumphs and failures. She exhaled, and rode on.

Ladyslipper Spring. Ruby unsaddled Legacy before hobbling her, upending the saddle to rest on horn and front skirts. The golden mare had a habit of rolling when turned loose during a ride, even with a saddle and hobbles on. Better to anticipate it and avoid saddle damage.

As she expected, Legacy wandered off once she was stripped down to rope halter and attached lead rope, nose to the ground, legs half-buckled as she sought the perfect rolling spot. After circling, dog-like, around her chosen area, Legacy dropped and rolled. After she rose and shook herself, Ruby put the hobbles on. Then she returned to the saddle and retrieved her lunch bag, and a blanket she had brought from the saddlebags.

Gabe had spent a bit of time here that day, from the tracker records. Recorded several videos and programmed that difficult code, from the date codes on the tablet.

Why?

This was the same blanket Gabe had used that day. Ruby couldn’t know where he had chosen to spread it, but she would gamble that it was close to where she put the blanket down. In the shade under several tall Ponderosa pines, a relatively flat spot.

She settled on the blanket, nibbling on her sandwich and watching Legacy graze.

All right. I’m here. Why did you spend so much time in this one spot, Gabe? If only you could tell me.

Maybe it was the peacefulness surrounding Ladyslipper. An oppressive mental weight that Ruby hadn’t been aware of until now seemed to have lifted from her.

Was that it? Had Gabe just been seeking peace?

She lay back, wrapping the blanket around her—it was getting chilly—and watched the clouds overhead. As drowsiness overtook her, she placed Gabe’s hat over her face. It still bore faint traces of his scent.

The ebook version of The Enduring Legacy (book version of Repairing the Legacy) is available on Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo for $2.99 through the end of December. Click on the name of your preferred ebook store to go to it.

Two more episodes to go and that’s the end of this book. The next one up will be The Cost of Power, set in the Martiniere Multiverse, a universe where Gabe tells Ruby who he is four years after they get together. But this is also a world where the dynamics between Gabe and Philip end up being somewhat different—

The Cost of Power will begin serialization in January.

I am also working on a holiday short story—a Substack exclusive! It should hit your inbox on Christmas Day, with any luck. It’s going to be a sheer piece of fluff, set during Gabe and Ruby’s second Christmas together.

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